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Thursday, 10 March 2016

Train Like a German Soccer Star

In the stirring World
Cup final on Sunday between the national men’s soccer teams from Germany
and Argentina, an American played a role on the field in Rio de Janeiro
despite the United States team’s having been eliminated. Sitting and
occasionally pacing tensely along the German sideline was Mark
Verstegen, the team’s trainer.

Mr. Verstegen, the
founder and president of EXOS, a Phoenix-based company that trains
professional and recreational athletes and corporate executives, was
appointed in 2004 by Jurgen Klinsmann, then the coach of the German team
and now the United States coach. He was brought in to improve the
players’ fitness, agility, nutrition and resilience. At the time, the
Germans were at a low ebb by their high standards, having not won a
World Cup since 1990 or a European championship since 1996. Mr.
Verstegen said his appointment was met with widespread incredulity among
German fans, news media and even some players.

“They wondered what Americans could possibly teach” the German squad, he said.

Then the Germans
advanced to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup, performing better than
expected, and on Sunday, the team won this year’s edition, defeating
Argentina, 1-0, in extra time after having routed the host Brazilian
squad, 7-1, a few days earlier. There aren’t many skeptics about Mr.
Verstegen’s training methods now.

To learn more about
how he trained the German team and how the rest of us might adapt some
of their routines at home, ,I spoke and emailed with Mr. Verstegen in
the days leading to and just after Germany’s title victory. (His book,
“Every Day is Game Day,” was published in January.) What follows are
excerpts from our conversations.

Q.

What were the logistics of training the German team at the World Cup, given that the team was traveling from city to city?

A.

We have a pretty
amazing mobile training camp. It’s a 4,000- or 5,000-square foot
structure that we erect adjacent to the pitch. It holds the latest
cardiovascular machines, weights, fitness and recovery gear, treatment
tables and so on.

Q.

What would a typical World Cup training session in that facility look like?

A.

It would depend on
how close we were to the next game, but we’d often divide the structure
into four stations, a mini-circuit, with a different exercise at each
station. We might have the players do things like a T-Hip rotation exercise
at one station and a miniband lateral walk at another. That’s where you
strap a band across the thighs or ankles and walk sideways. We were
ridiculed in 2004 when we had players exercise that way. But hip
stability is essential for soccer performance and injury mitigation.
People don’t laugh about it now.

Q.

After a session in the facility, then what?

A.

The team goes onto
the field and does drills, lots of drills, working on agility and
acceleration and building power. We might have them do lateral and cross
sprints, drop squats, running with the parachute or the Bullet belt [a
harness worn by the player and attached to a long rope held by a coach].
After that, there’d be technical and tactical work with the ball.

Q.

How different are these sessions from the training that the German team did before you arrived?

A.

There was more
emphasis then on the technical and tactical elements. The physical
training was very general, with lots of long runs. Now the players still
spend lots of time working on technique and tactics, but their physical
training is more focused and individualized. We constantly assess
players’ movement patterns, for instance, watching as they perform every
exercise. Precision is very important. If they’re slightly off in their
movements on any particular day, we correct things right away. It’s
like running an antivirus program on a computer. You want to get rid of
the junk and keep the movements precise.

Q.

Just how fit is the German team?

A.

I can give you
precise numbers on that. The German players covered 113.8 kilometers, or
about 71 miles, on average as a team per game in the group phase. Only
the Americans ran more as a team. In the quarterfinal round against
France, German players ran 7.5 kilometers, or about 4.6 miles, more as a
team than did the French side. That translates to about three-quarters
of a player more on the pitch.

Q.

How can you tell how much players are running?

A.

All of the players
wear monitors in their cleats that track their mileage, movements, where
they are on the field, when they stop and start, and all sorts of
additional data. We track every player’s every heartbeat and keep and
compare data from practice to practice and game to game. We repeat
certain drills, and if someone is performing the same drill with a lower
heart rate or faster speed, we know he’s improving. If he’s slower or
his heart rate stays elevated, we monitor him to make sure that’s he’s
not becoming overly fatigued or ill, then get him to push himself a bit
more.

Q.

Any suggestions on
which aspects of the German team’s training program those of us at home
might usefully incorporate into our exercise routines, even if we aren’t
soccer players?

A.

The broad elements of
the training program apply to anyone. Concentrate on your mind-set,
nutrition, movement patterns and recovery. On a practical level, get
plenty of sleep, which is extremely important and often overlooked. Kick
the electronics out of the bedroom. At the other end of the day, when
you first wake up, do a few push-ups or yoga poses, anything that gets
your body and mind primed for activity. You’ll be more receptive to
activity throughout the day. Then try to do whatever exercise you do a
bit better every day. You don’t have to be doing split squats with
kettle bells, but do something that pushes you a bit. The point is that
the body and the brain respond positively to having demands put on them.
That’s really the key to fitness.

Q.

Are you happy with the outcome of that last World Cup game?

A.

Utter elation. We had
put in 10 focused years of attention to details. There are no givens in
sports, but once that whistle blew, it was utter joy.

Roll Your Glutes Like Bastian Schweinsteiger

To lessen the chance
of injury and improve performance, we all should ease into exercise with
an orchestrated warm-up, Mr. Verstegen said. These eight exercises
approximate a typical warm-up for the German national soccer team, so
for many of us, they “might be a workout in itself at first,” he said.
But persevere, and the moves will become easier, he said, and your
subsequent workouts will be more productive. These exercises require a
foam roller and resistance band, which are available at many gyms or can
be purchased at sporting goods stores. They are best performed in the
order listed.